I’m sorry I’ve been MIA (missing in action), but my girls and I have been in Oregon visiting Don for the past week. This is the first time that Danielle and Kellie have been to Oregon, so there’s been a lot of sight-seeing and checking out different areas just outside of Portland . . . and a bit of house 
hunting. We haven’t yet sold our house in Southern California, but I wanted to see some houses in Oregon in different neighborhoods, and get a feel for homes and builders. And I wanted to be prepared just in case our house does sell in the next few months. :pray: I’ve been viewing a lot of homes that are for sale in Oregon on-line, and I made a list of the ones that appeal the most to me that I want to see while we’re here. There are certain things I’m looking for in a new home (all Don wants is a three car garage! Typical guy! 
), and one of the most important things would be a nice, big, functional kitchen — functional as in the way it’s laid out. I want a kitchen nook for our table and I want a LARGE great room (family room), since that’s where we spend the majority of our time together as a family.
What I don’t want is a formal living room and dining room. For me, personally, it’s been a waste of good square footage. The house I currently have has both, and we hardly ever use either. In fact, I recently sold my formal dining room set and china hutch because it’s furniture I just didn’t want to take with us — and I’m hoping we’ll find a house without a formal dining room. Believe or not, they’re out there — I’ve seen them, and it’s what works for us, personally. Currently, our formal living room has a pool table in it. When we first moved into this house 18 years ago we did the whole “formal living room” thing, and never ever used it!!! When we had company over, or even a party, everyone gathered in the kitchen and family room — which is why those two things are so important to me. Anyway, we got rid of the nice living room couch and furniture, and bought a pool table and some comfortable reclining chairs, and we’ve gotten more use out of that room now than we ever did before. So, those are my main requirements. I have a few more, but that big kitchen and great room is the top of the list.
Now, as we’re walking through homes that are for sale, I’m noticing a trend where people are painting every room a different color — and I’m not talking neutral colors, but bright, bold colors! 8O I’m a neutral color girl myself. My walls in my current home are beige and the trim is white. (Boring to some, I’m sure! 
) If I want color in a room, I do it with decor and furnishings. So, seeing all these bright colors on the walls in the homes up here in Oregon is throwing me off! I understand that everyone has their own taste, and colored rooms work for a lot of people — but I’m having a hard time seeing the layout of the house past that vibrant paint. I’m also very concerned that I won’t be able to paint the walls my neutral beige because the color underneath is so bold and bright and will change my beige color to something I just can’t live with. 
So, I have two curious questions for you today. 1) If you have a formal living room and dining room, do you use them? 2) Do you prefer neutral colored walls in a house, or the bolder colors?
I’ll be traveling back home today and won’t see your comments until this evening, but I’m definitely curious to read your answers! :wink:
P.S. The pictures in this blog are actual pictures of homes that are listed for sale in the Oregon area. I just wanted to show you what I meant by the bolder, brighter colors on the walls. 
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ADDITION TO BLOG: Hi, Julie here. I’m just sneaking into everyone’s blogs this week, aren’t I? Bad Julie. 
I’m guest blogging over at Diana Peterfreund’s blog today, telling the story about how PHANTOM PLEASURES (in stores now, as if you didn’t know!) took fifteen years to publish. Come by and say hi! She’s also giving away a copy!
Janelle Denison finds it hard to believe that it’s been nearly 25 years since she first started writing romance novels. At first, it was a way to pass idle time while her husband worked swing shift, but before long it became an obsession to get published. Luckily, she kept at it (it took her over 5 years to get that first book published!) and is now a Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, and USA Today Bestselling author! Now, after selling over 45 plus novels, she finds that her Plotmonkey pals help to keep her stories fresh and unique, and she can’t imagine writing a story without their input. Janelle lives in Oregon with her husband, Don, along with two teenage daughters that keep life interesting.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
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With the exception of the lime green room, I love all these rooms! I hate beige walls. I want color! I’ve lived with neutral colors for 10 years and with the redesign of my kitchen, I’ve decided enough is enough. So I vote color!
However, you have to do what YOU like. Any color can be covered with a good primer. Valspar from Lowes is excellent paint. So don’t let that put you off! Paint is a relatively cheap way to change the entire look of a room.
Oh, I have a formal living and dining room, too. I never use them, but it’s a place to keep my beloved antiques. Again, just because a house has one doesn’t mean you can’t use it for something else. My cousin turned her formal livingroom into a pool/rec room. It’s the first room you walk into and it looks fabulous!
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Like Julie said and I mentioned to you too, a good primer is the answer or no one would buy a house if they didn’t like the current color on the walls! I think what’s really blocking you is that you just don’t like it … and honestly neither do I. I’ve painted our walls initially a white/cream and put white trims. Over time we’ve decorated with wallpaper in some rooms, but again, all neutral colors. I wouldn’t expect anyone who bought my house to keep it. So primer, primer, primer. Just try to look at layout only!
We have a formal living room and dining room BUT the formal living room is tiny and not used as a living room. For the first ten years here, it was the playroom on the kitchen level because the kids like to be on the same floor/level as me. And now it’s a mini-den that nobody uses b/c we have other rooms anyway. But it’s still a good selling point for people who DO want a formal living room and if it’s too small, they can knock the wall out between the living room and study and make it one big formal living room. Their choice. (Not that I am moving any time soon!)
And lastly, we have a formal dining room because most holidays – Thanksgiving and others are done here with out of town family and I need and want the room. Many of my friends wanted a formal dining room to have dinner parties. Uhhh … Not me. I don’t cook except for holidays and even that is mostly catering in.
We also have a great room, a kitchen table nook, and a area with bar stools where the kids and I usually eat breakfast. SO … basically I think that if you find THAT which seems to be your primary requirement, like Julie said, just because the other rooms exist doesn’t mean they will be used as formal living or dining rooms in YOUR house.
I’m surprised if most houses don’t have the formal living room/dining room just as a selling point and the individual owner turns them into whatever room they want!
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I don’t have either in my current house (rented out because I am in Berlin) and I miss them desperately. There’s no room, even in the large kitchen, to have a big family dinner (sit down) and that is important to me. So much so that when we go back we may add on to that house to allow for a huge kitchen with a dining area built in. But we got rid of the dining room furniture, so I can love with building a big table into the kitchen area, though that wouldn’t be my preference- as for colors, wherever we go we paint deep and rich, or calm and soothing. But we love colors. We even had lime green cabinets and spring green walls in our kitchen (with silver metal counters) but to show for rental, we repainted that room to a light green wall and white cabinets. Left everything else, though. And there is a primer for every paint, I assure you! Love that deep blue in the dining room, btw.
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I don’t have either in my current house (rented out because I am in Berlin) and I miss them desperately. There’s no room, even in the large kitchen, to have a big family dinner (sit down) and that is important to me. So much so that when we go back we may add on to that house to allow for a huge kitchen with a dining area built in. But we got rid of the dining room furniture, so I can live with building a big table into the kitchen area, though that wouldn’t be my preference- as for colors, wherever we go we paint deep and rich, or calm and soothing. But we love colors. We even had lime green cabinets and spring green walls in our kitchen (with silver metal counters) but to show for rental, we repainted that room to a light green wall and white cabinets. Left everything else, though. And there is a primer for every paint, I assure you! Love that deep blue in the dining room, btw.
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I have both a den with a fireplace and wet bar and wine fridge (which I REALLY use . . . now that’s something handy), and a formal living room, which I really use, especially for entertaining. What I don’t use is my dining room. So, just like in my last house, I turned it into my office–I love it–I can see everyone, be central to my kids, but it’s my own nook.
All my rooms are painted colors–but not THAT bright . . . more in the earthy pallettes. Kind of like Pottery Barn colors in their catalog.
Good luck with the house hunt.
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A designer friend of mine told me she would leave the walls painted if the home was being shown furnished, but that she would paint the walls white once unfurnished. This probably doesn’t help you, but I felt compelled to share.
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Good morning Plotmonkeys and Jungle Crawlers,
Ditto from me on the primer, Janelle. You can paint those walls any color you want, hon after applying a good primer. Like Carly said just look at the layout, the size of the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the yard…and of course the “3″ car garage. :-)
We have a living room and dining room combination. I’m not sure that I would call it formal. It has a cathedral ceiling. And a couple of years ago, Mike and I built bookcases, a mantel with a hearth with tile and installed a pellet stove. We added a sectional sofa and a sofa table and a gossip bench. Everything looks fab with the dining room. Our dining room table is actually from my husband’s bachelor days. It’s 8 feet long! We had it refinished and it’s great for holidays and big family gatherings or gatherings with friends. I love doing table-scapes and making a festive table setting for holidays. I have a server, a breakfront and china cabinet. My harp is also in there. I play it in there in the winter. I worry about the dry heat from the pellet stove. Anyway, I also have my treasures cabinet. Things I have collected over the years that I just like looking at. We have carpet in there at the moment but want to install hardwood like the rest of the downstairs. There is an antique Victorian chest that sits in the entry way with a really cool little piece of sculpture of a woman hugging her dog. The style is Art Deco. I like to make things eclectic. With the high ceiling it works great. There is a fan light over the top of the front door which is actually square and not fan shaped. We had a stained glass window made with hummingbirds and morning glories and had it installed there several years ago. When the sunlight comes in in the afternoon it splashes the colors on the hallway upstairs. We spend a lot of time in there. I love reading/napping on the sofa.
Now, color. The downstairs is painted a pale golden yellow with white trim as are the walls in the upper hallway upstairs. The sunlight depending on the time of day changes the color from light to a more golden yellow. The bedrooms are painted a shade of white but the thing is it doesn’t look white. It takes on a different tone depending on the time of day. It kind of looks like a very pale, pale green. The trim is white. It’s really nice and very soothing. The bathrooms are also painted this color. When we first moved in my husband wanted COLOR. So, each bedroom was painted a different color, all pastels but different. I like the way it’s painted now much better. The carpet is sage green.
We also have a family room and kitchen combo with a breakfast area and fireplace where we watch TV. The family room is a bit small and eventually I’d like to knock down a wall or two and enclose the patio.
So, Janelle, go forth and prime those walls, babe. No worries about color okay? :banana:
Have a terrific day all,
Cher
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I rent an apartment, so I don’t get to pick different colors for my walls normally. I actually work for the management company, so I did get to keep the pale yellow bathroom and get my kitchen cabinets painted white(really ugly dark wood before). My walls are a beige with white trim and I love them. I guess I’m a neutral color person too.
I had to laugh at the lime green room, because my middle niece picked that for her room color when they first moved into their new house 4 years ago. Her dad re-painted it beige last year so the house would be easier to sell when they are ready. All the other rooms were pretty neutral and he didn’t want that room to stand out so much.
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I’m a color girl all the way! I am also currently home hunting. Most of what I have seen in the Massachusetts area has been white/beige/or pastel walls. It can become a task to visualize your own colors. I love the colors used in all the photo’s (including the lime green – but I would have only used it on one wall). Good luck with your search. :wave:
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I do have formal living & dining rooms and really like having them. We do have big holiday dinners at my house and my dining room furniture just looks so pretty with all my Mom’s china in the buffet, the light wood, it’s just really nice. And the formal living room we don’t use much, but I like it for holidays. Now that we have a big rec room it’s not as important, but when we were in FL, I *loved* having a separate living room and family room because when we were entertaining, for instance, the kids could be in one and we could be in the other.
I am a very earth toned color person. We did a lot of painting in this house when we bought it last summer (oy, my shoulder STILL hurts…) We did leave the really dark green family room, it just looked perfect with our furniture. Plus the “splatter” green all on the walls of the nook as well as the dark green ceiling was just so beautiful and makes the whole kitchen look like a green house. Other than that, we’ve painted everything! The kids had free reign and went nuts with color. The rest of the house house is mostly cream/beige/light brown. Looks great!
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I have both a formal dining room and living room. No they really aren’t used except for holidays or special gatherings. But I won’t get rid of them. If I had to have people over and didn’t have a dining room, I wouldn’t know what to do. Now that Laurie is 14 and will probably be wanting some privacy, we are considering making our living room a living space (putting in a tv and making it more comfortable). Since I don’t have a basement, I want her to feel she can have an area to bring her friends in.
I have had neutral colors on the walls forever and we are finally getting around to adding color. I like the color but not flourescent or too bold. I’m tired of the plain. I think with anything, you go through stages. So don’t let the walls deter you from buying the house if you like it otherwise.
Good luck with it all!
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Well, let’s see. My daughter’s room has every other wall bright green and the other walls blue. My bathroom is teal. My bedroom is a deep, passionate purple and our living room is pale yellow with the hallway a brighter yellow! LMBO. Primer. Primer. Primer.
Our “dining area” is really part of my home office and not used very often at all.
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When we had a house with a formal living/dining room in additon to a nook and family room, we used the lr/dr as a play room.
As far as bright colored walls: they’re not my personal preference, but much of Oregon is gray most of the year (yep, an Oregonian here!), so the bright colors might be a way to try and combat that. But paint is cheap and easy to apply. A good primer will hide the dark walls underneath, so you’ll have an extra step (or make it a condition of the sale?).
Our walls are a nice khaki color with white trim. All the “public” spaces in our house have the same color on the walls. But we let each kidlet pick their own bedroom colors (within reason) and our master suite will be a nice pale sage and my office is yellow (though that may be changing to something more soothing–like the khaki or sage). Earth tones for me, thanks.
Good luck with the house search.
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I work in real estate, so see these bright, bold colors more & more. Personally, dark colors make a room look smaller to me. I prefer neutral or pastels – soft yellows, gold, even a very very very light pink or blue is okay. Everyone’s taste is different – but like everyone else said, don’t nix a house just because of the color scheme. Try to look past that if you can. If you’re going to build, that is the best option cause you get to pick what you want!!
I like your idea of a great room & big kitchen Janelle (it’s what I want too!) As long as the kitchen has access to where everyone else is in the house and not off by itself (I hate the idea of being stuck in there cooking while everyone else is watching the game, or partying or whatever!).
Good luck with house selling/hunting!!! :pray:
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Hi guys!! I am home!! Woo-hoo!!
I love bright colors, actually color of any hue. So every room is, or will be when I am done, painted something besides beige. I hate beige.
We have a formal dining room, if that is what you want to call it. It’s an addition to the house and is 16′by 24′. the table is usually set for 6 people (it’s a big round one) but when pulled out it seats 20 or so. And we use them all. We seldom eat at any table except for holidays since we all go in different directions for dinner. When I cook. But I do have lots of china and crystal and silver that I love to use. Most of it was my great- grandparents and has been handed down to me. I also collect it. I have about 3 china cabinets filled with stuff.
The rest of the dining room is set up at one end as a small tv area with a couch, chair and a desk. And lots of books. And a light to read them by.
going to take a nap.
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We don’t have the extra rooms and I wish we did. I probably wouldn’t use them as a formal living room and dinning room though.
I love the picture of the kitchen!!! I’m a Pottery Barn kinda color girl too. My livingroom has a goldenrod yellow, my kitchen has red and the bedrooms have a very deep tan.
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When I first got married, we did everything white, tans and greys. After 15 years I went crazy with color…hunter greens and burgandys, very victorian…my kids said our house looked like Chritmas threw up in it
Little by little I’ve toned down the colors…No more Christmas vomit in our house!! lol
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I’ve grown to like colors in our house, but ones we’ve picked, not some previous owner! I agree with everybody who’s said paint those walls any color you want!
And while we have space in the house that is clearly intended to be a formal dining room and living room, it’s currently functioning as one big mostly unfurnished playroom for the kids. Our piano’s in one corner, there are a couple bookshelves, and a sofa along one wall, and the rest is toys and space to play. We keep saying that we need to get real furniture, but haven’t done it yet… maybe in a couple more years…
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I’m a woman that loves color! I’ve lived with beige or white way to long & to me it gives a space no personality. Now, that said! You have to do what pleases you. Color can be used that doesn’t blast you out of the room. A friend of mine had her house all painted in a warm golden sunny yellow. The first time I saw it was a foggy morning but despite that it seemed like the sun was shining, loved that color. It was neutral enough to have other color in the room. Like everyone has said primer will take care of any color you have to paint over. HGTV is great for help & hints. I have a feeling you really don’t need their help! Somewhere inside me is a frustrated decorator cause I love HGTV & other shows that do home makeovers. It is amazing what can be done with changing paint color & arranging the furniture in a better way.
Like you I would not care if I had a formal living room or dining room. I would want an area large enough for eating that I could do some entertaining or have family get togethers. A well laid out spacious kitchen would be a must. Guess I better run out to buy a Lotto ticket so I can afford to buy a house & decorate!!!
Donna M, a native Oregonian
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Since moving into our brand new house, I am starting to come out of my neutral color shell. I am in the process of redoing the girls bathroom half green and white. I am actually excited to see how it turns out. Big step for me.
I also have a joint formal living room/dining room. The room actually gets alot of use between family dinners and hubby’s piano playing. It is very open with lots of windows that blends very well into the main entry way.
Best of luck on the selling/buying.
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Good luck with the house. I just bought a house here in Texas. I use my formal dining room but I wouldn’t use a formal living room. When I was hosting a ton of military events I did and loved it since I had so many kids the could play and mess up the family room. Now that I’m not doing that so much and the kids are older I love a more family room, nuetral colors and lots of windows. good luck jai
ps. I don’t have anything in my house either. I’m waiting for furniture to arrive at any time.
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we ahve a formal dining room and living room and we rarely use the ding room it’s a catch all for stuuf and the table is covered with stuff but we use the living room all the time…I prefer other colors ont he walls hate white or beige walls…but that is just me
Donna
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P.S. I just started reading Born to be Wilde this morning & already loving it!
Have a safe trip home.
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All you have to do to is cover the bright colors with Kilz primer to paint the walls a lighter color.
I am a color person and I live in Oregon.
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I spent the time in the hospital watching HGTV and trying to decide if I want to paing the kitchen and nice hot pepper or some shade of purple. A dusky one. I have to play
And i see we have new icons. cool.
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Ev, welcome home! Take care of yourself! I hope you are being properly pampered.
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I’m with you Janelle on the neutral colors. I prefer to have a beige or white wall and add my colors in the decor. I have an exception to that though. When we bought our house (a split entry raised ranch in 1991), the walls in the living/dining room/hallway to the bedrooms were painted a very pretty peach color and I kept it. My Dad just recently put in crown mouldings and we painted them white to match the ceiling. They look great – a very nice finishing touch! I don’t have a “formal” dining/living room. It’s an open layout, very casual, and we do use them. We do have an eat-in kitchen and have all our meals there unless we have company because the dining room table seats more people. There is usually a puzzle or homework being done on the dining room table. We also have a small family room addition off the kitchen that I just fell in love with when we first saw the house. That’s where we spend the most time together.
Good luck with the house hunting! I’m sure you’ll get something you’ll love!
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I prefer neutrals on the walls. Matter of fact, most of my house is being, white and blue. Especially if the walls are painted – I do NOT like bold colors of paint.
We do use the dining room and living room when we have company. We have a den and that is where the computer and t.v. are. It is where I live. LOL.
Good luck with the househunting. Just had to use the monkey icons.
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Janelle…I am sorry I missed you! I was in the great north (Canada). I am no longer MIA. Next time the plotmonkeys are in the NW, a round of drinks are on ME (at my favorite restaurant the Portland City Grill!).
I am the wrong person to ask this question…I want to change my dining room into an office/crafts room for me and the boys. As far as color, we probably would have color on the walls, if hubby had time to paint (and I have to be out of the house because it gives me migraines). We set that as a goal this year, but so far hasn’t panned out. I did find a lady who will paint murals in my boys’ rooms, though, once we paint them a neutral color.
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I am with Janelle on that neutrals for wall color. I add color with window treatments and accesories and the furniture. Easier and not as messy to change.
I did paint the bathrooms a nice shade of green (midsummers night dream). I took down the wallpaper because the steam had taken it apart at the seams after 10 years.
My kids painted their rooms one two tones of purple with those daisy flowers stamped on the walls . my oldest daughter the artist painted two walls night dark blue with silver stars and moons on the wall and a sun yellow with gold suns painted on the wall.
Looks like I have two flower children.
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Hey monkeys…I don’t have a house, so can’t answer the first question…I have a friend who painted every room in her apartment a different colour and it seems to work for her…I think it all bowls down to the type of colour that you want on your walls…personally, I don’t have rooms with different colour walls…Janelle, I am boring too…my friend actually told me that I needed some colour in my apartment, but I can’t see it…if I didn’t paint something, it would be the bathroom though…a nice soft pastel green or blue, but tha is the extent of the colours right there…I too like to add colour through the decor…Good luck with the house hunting…
Update on my Amazon package….they are not shipping it until July…I have 5 pre-ordered books in there, and I am guessing here, they probably want to send one big package…I am kinda bummed about that though…I am just going to have to make a trip to the bookstore and get your book Jules, and thtat goes for Janelle’s and Leslie’s too…Carly, I think that yours will come on time…if not, I will just pick up a copy…I am so jealous of all those who actually got their book and finished it already…neither the Walmart or the Sears Essentials near my house had Jules’ book…
Peace and love,
Paula R.
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Paula, if you tell them, they’ll ship separtely, but you might have to pay a lot more for shipping. I buy so much from Amazon, that I subscribed to Amazon Prime. For $50 a year (might be more) I get 2-day shipping for free on every eligible order.
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I’m back from Oregon — and it was a great trip! The girls went with and loved it there, too, and can’t wait to move! Lots of house hunting, and I truly did try not to let those bright colors affect whether a home was right for us, or not. All in all, we looked at 22 homes and only 2 of those are ones we’d consider. One of them I’d buy RIGHT NOW if our house was already sold. It would be perfect for us — it does have a formal dining room, but no formal living room. It has a HUGE kitchen, great room, master bedroom and secondary bedrooms. So, I’m hoping no one buys it before we sell this house. I want it! :pray:
It was interesting to read about everyone’s tastes. I did see some homes that looked good with the darker colors on the walls, but ultimately it’s just not ME. Different strokes for different folks! :giggle:
I hope you all had a good week. It’s nice to be back! :wave:
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Thanks Jules, that is my bad for not requesting that they ship separately…I will go online and see if I can change it….I don’t mind having two copies though because then I can loan one of them out and keep the other without worrying about people messing up my book and the pages…I am a book snob…what can I say?
Peace and love,
Paula R.
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We don’t use the backroom except for at Christmas, our kitchen is horrid and not functional in the least bit – except for making mac and cheese or using the microwave.
Like my mom said – she wants to paint the kitchen purple – why? I have no clue since she just painted the horrid thing this bright yellow like 2 years ago.
As for rooms being different colors and what not – my room has been sunshine yellow (seriously) and now it’s gold. I want to paint it black but my mom wont let me, so as soon as I get my room cleaned *again* and all the posters I have on the walls down *and there are so many of them I just want to paint around them* then I’m going to be painting my room grey and not just any grey – Sparrow grey – as in Capt. Jack Sparrow – I love Disney colors. The walls outside my room right now have this thing my mom did when we first moved here – a sky and an apple tree – which still wont give me apples – but soon that’s going to be covered up with sheet music and then over that I’m going to be hanging up my guitars and some of my photography.
When I ever do own my own place, each room will be a different color. I can’t stand plain walls, they’re just not me. There is nothing “normal” about me so why should my house be normal? I’m even going to have a Tim Burtonish room as well as a theatre room which I’m planning on having a projector and a projector screen in there to watch movies with movie posters *the classics and my faves etc* all over the place – pretty much like how Quentian Tarantino has his house.
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We have a formal dining room both here and in the States. We sent back the rental furniture because we just didn’t want to use the formal dining room here.
In the States we use our formal dining room for large family events.. Passover seders, Thanksgiving dinners and will use it for Friday (Shabbat) dinners. Otherwise we are in the kitchen area.
Bold colors that one can blend with are nice. That lime green room would have to go. :)
Good luck with the house hunting.
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That kitchen is a BEAUTY! I don’t like the bold colors either…but I do like just a hint of color. What worked for me in our family room was one wall is a shade darker than the other walls and the vaulted ceiling is the darker shade of blue. Sounds confusing!! Good luck in your house hunting.
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Hi first I want to say I grew up in Oregon be sure to go to Cannon beach, Ft.Stevens is neat too. We just built a house in Florida and I wish I would of done a big great room we have a formal living room I don’t even have furniture in it yet lol and our formal dining room we have eaten it twice since moving in in August. as for the pain it is pretty neutral throuh out the house except for My daughter’s room is Limecicle green, and my son’s room is corn flower blue.
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My husband and I are looking for a house now.
A formal dining room is on the list of must-haves. We had people over fairly often for dinner, and I like it in that setting.
I’d actually prefer not to have a formal living room. I prefer a comfortable family room atmosphere, attached to the kitchen, where we can put our feet on the coffee table and we also plan on finishing the basement for a recreation room.
As for bold colors, our old house is Florida has the living room painted a soft peach and the dining room painted maroon. The rest of the house was either white or beige. The peach is more soft than bold. The maroon is dramatic, however, because the dining room only had two walls it wasn’t overly so. I would, however, recommend to people trying to sell that they paint the walls white. It’s been off-putting for me as a potential buyer to see walls painted bright yellow or green.
Bettye Griffin
http://www.bettyegriffin.com
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You have to have the colors you love!
I prefer colors to neutrals. But it helps to know something about the psychology of different colors. For instance, greens can promote conversation. Reds/oranges can make you hungry all the time. Blues will tend to calm you or put you to sleep. If you want a sunny effect go with some shades of yellow which can pep you up on cloudy/rainy days.
Having said I love colors, I do have one neutral that I adore, and that’s a medium to light shade of gray which oddly can also make rooms more pleasant to be in when it rains. Gray will make the colors of your artwork, drapes, carpet, and furniture really POP and you have to see this to understand how gorgeous that can be.
I don’t care much for formal living rooms (the kind where guests fear to tread because they might leave a trace behind) or formal dining rooms. A nice office and a nice library/study though? Wonderful!
Good luck on selling your house (I feel it’s impossible to sell a home) and also on finding a place in Oregon to love.